HAPPY`S HOME IS A MUSEUM OF MEMORIES

Kathy Larkin, New York Daily NewsCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Happy Rockefeller stands on the summit of the Pocantico Hills estate in the late October sunshine. It is the site of a genuine love story--her own. She came here as a bride in May, 1963, to marry then-governor Nelson Rockefeller.

The main house, called Kykuit, is now a national landmark--which may eventually open to the public. It is filled with art and with furnishings from Chippendale to Sheraton. But the family is gone and Happy Rockefeller`s life has changed.

Now she lives alone in a small Japanese-style home near the main house. She divides her time among her children, friends and the corporate boards on which she serves. She spends the colder months chiefly in her Manhattan apartment, but returns here most weekends.

Although she`s a woman who empathizes easily with others, Happy Rockefeller rarely gives interviews. Yet today at Kykuit, Happy Rockefeller is smiling. ''I have so many wonderful memories of this house. When I first moved here, my family was a little overwhelmed. So was I. But Laurance (Rockefeller) said: `Happy, it might look big now, but someday you`re going to think it`s too small.`

''When Nelson was alive, this house was overflowing with life, with his vitality, with six children, state officials, staff, world leaders.''

Today Kykuit is part of history. In the small dining room, overlooking the Hudson, the emperor of Japan, Anwar Sadat and other world figures sat down to supper. Over there, in the sitting room, Nancy and Henry Kissinger had a post-wedding party.

It is an imposing mansion housing a basement art gallery of Calder sculptures and Picasso tapestries. There is a tennis court, putting green and, from everywhere, a view of the Hudson spreading north like spilled silver into the dusk.

But Kykuit also was a home. Children have roller-skated through the art gallery. There was once a second swimming pool just for them and a play area with an apple tree.

''When I moved here,'' she says, ''I told Nelson I needed a back yard for the children; so he created one.''

After her divorce from Dr. James Murphy, their four children--James, Margaretta, Carol and Malinda Murphy--lived much of the time with Happy and Nelson Rockefeller. Nelson Jr. and Mark, now 21 and 18, increased the family. And the governor, older than Happy by 18 years, had four children by his previous marriage.

She says: ''Most people can get a divorce without having the world hang on it. That was difficult. You can never really discuss the actual facts, because you don`t want to hurt other people.''

Nelson Rockefeller taught their sons to sail, play golf and tennis and camped out with them. ''He gave them self-confidence,'' she says.

Rockefeller, a practical man, once shocked a guest by standing on his dining room table to correct a faulty light. He also allotted chores to his offspring, including fetching wood and polishing shoes. ''Our children were brought up as he had been, to do whatever they might ask another person to do.''

There were times, she remembers, ''when, like all women, I wanted my husband to myself. My mother said: `Happy, don`t you realize what he`s doing? He knows he won`t be here when they get older; he`s trying to teach them as much as he can now.` ''

One of their happiest times together came after Rockefeller left Albany.

''I had wanted that to be the end of politics,'' she says. ''I wanted Nelson to come home so we would have time. He wasn`t that young. And he`d worked hard all his life.''

They had nine months together before, in August, 1974, Gerald Ford asked the former governor of New York to accept the vice presidency. Then, just weeks after Betty Ford`s mastectomy, Happy Rockefeller discovered what proved to be a malignant tumor near her left armpit. It was the second time she had to face an ordeal women dread. Yet she can remember the experiences with humor.

''When I was waking up in that recovery room the first time, with Nelson and the doctor hanging over me . . . Well, I`ve (had) six children, so the first thing I asked was `Is it a boy or a girl?` ''

Four shelves of photo albums occupy one wall: Nelson Rockfeller`s own record of their life together, from their marriage day to the evening he left a family gathering for his office and suffered a fatal heart attack.

She still doesn`t like to talk about that night but will say: ''For any woman, widowhood is an enormous change--especially if you`ve been as close over the years as Nelson and myself. It was a hard transition, and the hardest thing was facing the void left by a very vital human being. . . . He said that I made him strong. I think he made me strong.''

Hanging on one wall in the Japanese house are two photos. One is of Nelson as a child, striding ahead of his governess; the other frames a wide-eyed little girl setting out with her bike and her dog, Challenger, to see the world.

The couple met in 1957, during his gubernatorial campaign. ''I wasn`t born a Rockefeller. I just happened to marry one. I`ve had the best of both worlds. It`s like living on both sides of the tracks.''

Her future now? She pauses, then: ''I`ve got everything but him, really. He taught me this: Every time you see an open door, go through it; opportunity is on the other side.''

Happy Rockefeller is designing another home for Pocantico: a simple, one- level house of her own to be built down the hill from Kykuit and the Japanese house, which will eventually go to their sons. In that new home will be one gift from Nelson Rockfeller she cherishes above all others: a photo of them both taken shortly before his death. The inscription reads: ''Dearest Happy, Here`s to your 50th and time for us to really enjoy the years ahead. With a heart full of love and appreciation for your courage and understanding and strength for the tough years behind us. Nelson.''